Investor Relations

The Merchandising segment continues to provide stable sales and profits. Although the size of sales is relatively small, Merchandising is positioned to be one of our important businesses from the standpoint of strengthening the grand design of intellectual property including original productions. We would like to continue to generate stable profit into the future.

During the FY2014/3, various structural reforms and reviews on assets were implemented mainly in the Digital Entertainment segment. Some of these efforts are still underway and we have begun to see some of the benefits of these efforts around the end of the FY2014/3. We are even more focused in this FY2015/3 to show successful results.

These three points were explained at the Results Briefing a year ago as major tasks of the structural reforms to be implemented in the Digital Entertainment segment. "Review the large-scale, long-term development policy" means accelerating the development cycle. As a part of this significant overhaul, we tasked several Western studio-produced titles to become more online-focused. . "NOSGOTH", a title I will explain in more detail later, and other unannounced titles are the fruits of these efforts. Please stay tuned for further updates.

"Focus on smart devices as a game platform" means the acceleration of game development for smart devices. This market is changing so rapidly that it is vital to provide products in a timely manner. It is crucial to be the first to take advantage of quickly moving market trends to provide games as the market leader and we believe this FY2015/3 is a critical time for us. We have many titles that have not yet been announced and whether or not the launch of these titles is successful will play a significant part in our performance for this FY2015/3. "Construct a product portfolio conforming to consumer tastes in respective served markets" doesn't just mean overseas expansion, but developing games with features finely tuned to each region’s local preferences. This concept is based on our policy that we shall focus on certain areas of games that are best suited for each studio and region, rather than trying to come up with a game for the global market, and then examine if such games could be deployed in other regions. As I will explain later, during this FY2015/3 we have multiple titles that will be launched in the Asian market including China, and this is going to be the most significant topic for the Company this year.